TAA Tools
Installing from the .iso File
Refresh Date: June 15, 2022
Refresh Number: 73
Applies to IBM i Releases 7.3, 7.4, and 7.5

IMPORTANT

Please make sure you have the following PTFs or their supersedes
installed on your system. These correct IBM problems that may cause an
install failure. The problem was reported as APAR SE66239.

    R710 SI63541 (if installing R68 or earlier)
    R720 SI63531
    R730 SI63540

In addition the following PTF is required on 7.3 in order for some of
the authorization list tools to work properly:

    R730 SI60781

No known PTFs are required for 7.4 at this time.

7.2 Support

Refresh 72 (May 15, 2021) was the last refresh for IBM i 7.2. Fixes to
7.2 tools will continue to be made on an "as needed" basis until April
30, 2024.

Note

You should use the installation process and not attempt to save the
TAATOOL and TAASECURE libraries from one system and restore to another
system or even another partition on the same system.

If the tools do not already exist on your system, you will need both
*SECADM and *ALLOBJ special authorities to do the initial install. If
they do exist, then you could also do an install if you are on the
TAAINSTALL authorization list with *USE authority.

Overview

The TAA Productivity Tools are licensed to a specific serial number
and software tier. You may install the TAA Productivity Tools on an
unlicensed system for a maximum of seven days. After this you will
need a demo license or a full license. Keys for either may be obtained
by contacting TAA Tools support.

You should not attempt to install the TAA Productivity Tools unless
you have at least 2 GB of free space on your system. If you have less
than 2 GB of free space, see the section later in this document. After
the install is completed, the TAA Productivity Tools require
approximately 600 MB.

The TAATOOL objects are shipped in a compressed form. The size of the
TAATOOL library will increase as you use the objects.

The TAA Archive is standard and contains a compressed version of all
of the source. If you have a full license, you may display or 'copy
out' any of the source. After installing, see the CPYTAA, CPYTAA2, or
CPYTAAALL commands to 'copy out' the source.

If you have changed the defaults for the system RSTLIB command in
QSYS, you must change back to the system defaults.

Support

You can contact support by emailing support or calling 507-258-5182.
Telephone support is available Monday through Friday 9:00 AM to 5:00
PM Eastern Time.

Documentation

Full documentation for all tools is available on our web site:
https://taatool.com/.

After installation, all documentation for the TAA Tools is available
within the tool itself. Use the WRKTAA command to see the tool
documentation. Use the HELPTAA command to view all of the "How To"
documentation for the tools.

Installing from the .iso file

TAA Productivity Tools installation can be done either by physical CD
or by CD image. This article explains how to install from a CD image
contained in the .iso file. See these instructions to install from a
physical CD.

The .iso file you have downloaded is a CD image file. It will be named
VvRrMm_yymmdd.iso where VvRrMm is the IBM i version of the tools and
yymmdd is the refresh date of the tools.

If you have a .iso file, you will need to transfer it to the IFS on
your system and use it by mounting it into a virtual CD drive. This is
described in the steps below.

The .iso file is not specific to a serial number. You can use the same
file on any system partition that is at the correct release for that
file. You will need a key from TAA Tools for that serial number and
IBM i release.

Remote Install: You can use an .iso file to install on several IBM i
servers including those that you cannot physically access. In
addition, if you have a physical CD, you can make an .iso file from
that and use that image with these instructions. See the steps below.

Advanced Users: If you have several partitions you may be able to set
up a real optical device on the hosted partitions that points to a
virtual optical device on the hosting partition. By mounting the TAA
Tools CD image into that virtual optical device on the hosting
partition you can make the CD appear to be loaded on all hosted
partitions. The procedure for doing so depends on how your paritioning
environment is set up. You may need to contact your business partner
for help with this configuration.

Gather your Information

You will need the following information:

-   Your system's IP name or address
-   A user name and password for an account that has *ALLOBJ and
    *SECADM authority or is in the TAAINSTALL authorization list.
-   The home directory in the IFS for that account on the IBM i. This
    is usually /home/[user-profile-name]. If your user profile does
    not have a home directory you will need to create one and place
    that name in your user profile.

Introducing Samantha Smith

We will use a fictional user, Samantha Smith, to illustrate some of
the steps. You, of course, will need to change these instructions to
use your own user name, home directory, and IP name or address.

-   Ms. Smith's user profile on the IBM i is SSMITH.
-   She has *SECADM and *ALLOBJ authorities.
-   Her home directory on the IFS is /home/ssmith.
-   She is running a Windows or macOS workstation.
-   Her workstation account is ssmith.
-   She is using the standard download directory on her workstation.
-   The IP name of her system is blackbird.megacorp.com.

Ms. Smith will be installing the 7.4 version of the tools dated August
15, 2019. Her CD image will be the file V7R$M0_190815.iso.

Step 1: If needed, create a CD image from a physical CD

Note: If you have a downloaded .iso file from TAA you can skip this
step.

If you have a physical CD you can create an CD image from the CD by
using any number of data CD ripping tools from a personal computer.
Make sure, however, that the resulting image you create supports long
file names. The .iso image will fail to install if you use the DOS 8.3
naming scheme to create it.

Step 2: Upload the .iso file to the IFS

There are many ways to get the .iso file into the IFS. You can use
FTP, SFTP, IBM i NetServer support, IBM's Access for Windows, IBM's
Access Client Solutions (ACS), or one of the many graphical FTP/SFTP
clients available on the web, to upload the image to the IFS.

Of these, ACS is recommended since it can be done by selecting
"Integrated File System" from the main menu and then "Upload" from the
View menu.

If you use FTP make sure to transfer the file in binary mode. You
could use the following steps for transferring the file from your
workstation to the IBM i IFS using FTP.

The example below is specific to Ms. Smith, FTP, and Microsoft
Windows. You will need to modify the IBM i system, the directory
names, and the CD image file name as necessary.

Ms. Smith has opened a command line window using the cmd application.

    cd Downloads                      <--- this should get to C:\Users\ssmith\Do
    ftp blackbird.megacorp.com        <--- start an FTP session
          <--- login to IBM i
    quote site namefmt 1              <--- directs the IBM i server to use PC-li
    cd ~                              <--- go to the home directory (/home/ssmit
    bin                               <--- place the session in binary mode
    put V7R4M0_190815.iso             <--- put the 7.4 CD image to the home dire
    quit                              <--- all done

Step 3: Create a virtual optical drive

Note: By convention, virtual optical drives are named OPTVRTnn, where
nn is a number.

Note: If a virtual optical drive is already created you may be able to
use that one. You can check to see if you have any virtual optical
drives by using the WRKCFGSTS CFGTYPE(*DEV) CFGD(*OPT) command. The
device you want to use must be varied on.

If you are installing on a partition that lacks an optical drive you
can create a virtual optical drive from which to install the .iso
file.

    CRTDEVOPT DEVD(OPTVRTxx) RSRCNAME(*VRT)

You will need to make the drive available as well:

    VRYCFG OPTVRTxx *DEV *ON

If you do vary on the device, then you should vary it off in step 8.

Step 4: Create an image catalog

An image catalog can be viewed as a CD changer. Each entry in the
catalog is a virtual CD or DVD and the catalog has the ability to move
through them.

An image catalog is associated with a directory on the IFS that holds
the .iso stream files that are the CD images. This directory is
associated with the image catalog when the image catalog is created.

You can create an image catalog to hold the TAA Productivity Tools
.iso file or you can use an existing one.

We recommend that you use the TAAIMAGES catalog and the /TAAIMAGES
directory.

To create an image catalog use the CRTIMGCLG command, for example the
following command creates an image catalog over the directory
/TAAIMAGES in the IFS. If the /TAAIMAGES directory does not exist this
command would create it.

    CRTIMGCLG IMGCLG(TAAIMAGES) DIR('/TAAIMAGES')

Step 5: Add an entry to the image catalog

Once you have an image catalog you need to add the .iso file
containing the TAA Productivity Tools to that catalog. This is done
with the ADDIMGCLGE command. The .iso file is assumed to be in your
home directory on the IFS. The process of adding the entry will copy
that .iso file to the directory associated with the image catalog.

Following our example, the command below adds the 7.4 TAA Tools .iso
file for the October 15, 2018 (R69) refresh from Samantha Smith's home
directory to the image catalog.

    ADDIMGCLGE
      IMGCLG(TAAIMAGES)
      FROMFILE('/home/ssmith/V7R4M0_190815.iso')

Your FROMFILE parameter will be the name of the .iso file you uploaded
into your home directory in step 2. It may be different than the
example.

Step 6: Load and mount the virtual CD

-   Use the WRKIMGCLG command to list the image catalogs on your
    system.
-   Locate the TAAIMAGES image catalog.
-   Use option 12 to examine the entries for that image catalog. There
    should an entry for the CD image you added in step 5.
-   Use option 6 on the CD image to mount it.
-   Use F6 to load the image catalog onto the virtual CD drive you
    found or created in step 3 (i.e. OPTVRTnn).
-   Back out to the command line using F12.

Step 7: Begin installation

Make sure that you can restore all of the objects including
authorization lists. To do this you will need to set the system value
QALWOBJRST to *ALL.

    DSPSYSVAL QALWOBJRST

If the value is not *ALL, record the current value and temporarily
change it so the install can proceed.

    CHGSYSVAL QALWOBJRST *ALL

Once mounted, the virtual optical device can be used to install the
TAA Productivity Tools.

    LODRUN DEV(OPTVRTnn)

The install process will display a series of prompt screens with help
text and options. You may access more text about the product by using
function keys. You may specify options such as whether to have a
separate command library.

The install work is done by the TAAINSTALL job that is submitted to
batch. You may specify when the batch job is to run. It takes about 20
minutes to install the product on a dedicated small system.

Installing the product will first delete the existing tools. You
should ensure that no user is using a tool during the batch
installation.

If the TAA Productivity Tools are successfully installed, the install
libraries TAAINS, TAAINSLIC, and TAAINS2 are automatically deleted.

Step 8: Clean up

When finished you should unmount the image catalog from the virtual
optical drive. You can do this with the WRKIMGCLG command.

If the virtual optical drive needs to be varied off you can do that
now.

    VRYCFG OPTVRTnn *DEV *OFF

If you change the QALWOBJRST system value to *ALL, now is the time to
change it back to its old value.

Copyright TAA Tools, Inc. 1995, 2022
					

Added to TAA Productivity tools April 1, 1995


Home Page Up to Top